The "Classic Sit Down" position
 

Hello fellow TGM friends. I am asking for some input on the classic "sit down" position during the downstroke. I have a mini tour friend who works with Mike Bender and he is having him work on this part of his downstroke. Benders comments (through my friend) were to just delay the movement of the right knee, and separate the left knee and the hip turns.

I am more inclined to verify his stance, weight distribution, and then feel a "sit" or lowering of the butt and then tilt to allow the shoulders to allow pivot action to deliver. I also saw Ledbetter working with a large rubber material strapped around Howels right knee as he squated behind him creating tension on the right knee.

So, hip action creates leg action which creates foot action. Right?

I would welcome any commnets.

Differentiating Hip Action and Knee Motion
 

jpgolf,

The Start Down is a Hip Action, not a Knee Motion. Substituting the latter for the former led to the Leg Drive Abyss of the '70s and '80s.

The function of the Legs -- the Knees and Feet -- is to keep the Head Stationary while operating through the Hips to Pull the Right Shoulder down On Plane.

Anything else is an aberration and should be avoided by thinking players.

Listening??
 

I agree with Lynn 100%. So the question is how many people were listening to what he had to say?

To begin the startdown you should focus on ___________.

I'll post my answer tomorrow.

Mike O.

Hips
 

Hip action drives the start-down. It is a small lateral move. Lynn also talks about how this move "takes out the slack", meaning your hips move but your hands do not initially. From there you fire through with either a throw-out or drive-out motion depending on if you are swinging or hitting.

How'd I do? :???:

Right Shoulder down the plane.

Hand Controlled Pivot- The essence of the Golfing Machine
 

Answer: 5-0, Focus on directing the hands (which tell you what the clubshaft,face, and head are doing) via the #3 pressure point towards the plane line or getting them to the impact hand location- both require monitoring an on plane motion with the hands.

The reason I said I agreed with Lynn 100% - is that I took his post and it's heading to specifically differentiate when looking at the lower body movement - it was the hips moving the knees and not the knees moving the hips- anotherwords his post had a isolated context in regards to his answer. But the down plane shoulder moves the hips and they all move in response to the on-plane motion of the hands.

Per 2-0, that's the principle- but it's application isn't easy or simple until your not doing all those things that "get in the way". For instance, ideally you have lag throughout the body- but we're just using or isolating #3 as the point of monitoring- if you focus on #3 and don't have lag throughout the body- then your toast, because it's like dominoes, once you lose it from the feet it starts throwing it away through the body until it reaches your hands, hopefully you made it past impact before that happens! If your off plane your toast, if you don't load the club properly your toast, etc, etc. ....

Don't forget the big picture- your basic motion- that is, the on plane motion of the hands (geometry) with their corresponding clubhead lag (physics)- everything else happens as a result of that- or hinders that motion and action.

Mike O.

Edit#1: I said I agreed with Lynn, but it's not my place to put words in Lynn's mouth, so certainly if he doesn't agree or I've misinterpreted his response- He'll clarify his stance on this.

I agree the Hands should always be Monitored (5-0), especially its intended Delivery Path from the Top of the Stroke.

However, how can we relate your post to:

6-M-1
The “Centers” of the Stroke start with the Feet or the employeed Component nearest to the feet in the following order: Knees, Hips, Shoulders, Arms, Right Elbow, Left Wristcock and/or Left Hand Rotation.

7-17
Halting the Backstroke motion with the Feet and letting this same tension pull the Downstroke through Impact is “swinging form the Feet” and gives the Stroke maximum Swing Radius.

6-B-0
From the Feet the total moment of Inertia increases proportionately to Pivot Lag. So the Clubhead (or Primary Lever Assembly) whose Swing Radius extends to the feet is much harder to decelerate during Impact. Which means better Clubhead Speed at Separation.

Thank you.

I don't think about my hands first
 

Personally, if I think about my hands FIRST on the downstroke I will likely come over the top. If I initiate with my hips, then my hands drop into the slot and I can go at the ball as hard as I want while focusing my throw-out karate chop motion (swinging).

Trig- Your Swing
 

Trig,
First- responding to your post is difficult via a forum, in that - my response can come across as if "your swing sucks"- if you know what I mean- and I'm sure it doesn't. Given the fact that if you - Trig - think about the hands first on the downstroke- then you come over the top- as opposed to when you think of the hips first you don't come over the top- from your perpective - thinking about the hands first CANNOT be correct- you've "proven" it!

But my point that I made in the third paragraph of my post above- was made for that very reason- that you've got other issues that are not being performed correctly or get in the way of performing a hand controlled pivot. I typed that very paragraph for everyone but specifically for all the people like yourself (hey - that may include 99.9% of everyone, including me). Because when someone says - say per the Golfing Machine- just take your hands down the plane and everything else will/should respond etc.- guess what it doesn't- and isn't that simple- because of all these things that get in the way. So the easy answer is to throw the baby out with the bath water- "Start the club down with the Hands i.e. the awareness of the lag pressure"- FORGET IT- THROWAWAY!, That's wrong! You got to focus on the body first!

So you've compensated by having pivot controlled hands- specifically in your case making sure that the body- i.e. hips, slide or make a particular move before you can allow the hands to move, etc. You've taken a movement that should be one continuous flow and broken it up- to allow your best chance of hitting the ball well- given the unknown issues in the movement.

Now, AND THIS IS KEY- your situation is not unusually- it's more of the norm for all of us on this forum. The good part about that, is that most probably can relate to what you're doing- and many including yourself can also sense or deduct that the movement that you're making is not the ideal- but it performs the best for today, given all of the known alternatives.

Not a cop-out but the proper context/knowledge to really grasp this can't be posted on a forum post in a matter of minutes- too many issues to cover. And believe me, many play golf and at a very high level doing what your doing- as I tried to emphasis it's not unusual to run into the problem that you have experienced. I guess that's about it for now, I'll respond to Tongzilla's post- which may address one specific issue- that may be helpful in understanding the issues surrounding this.

Mike O.

Hands AND Pivot- The marriage
 

Tong,
Don't have my book with me- Therefore would like to address the 7-17 quote and the 6-B-0 quote simultaneously- as they really cover the same general topic. (I'll look at the 6-M-1 quote another time).

In regards to the 7-17 quote- here would be the common "mis-read"- "Gee, sounds like I really want to make sure that I concentrate on the feet- specifically resisting the backward motion of the body with the feet- something like the X factor", "and then make sure that the I concentrate on the feet leading the downstroke. And this mis-read in regards to the Golfing Machine is common- in that as Homer describes the mechanical functioning of the machine parts- that happen- or are a result of something else- and all of a sudden the person is trying to perform this and that.

Taking a brief break for a paragraph here- it's important to understand a couple of key perspectives here- 1) The perspective of the ideal procedure for the movement and 2) Understanding those things that you are temporarily working on in order to make the machine function better. Those are two separate issues and must always be understood in their proper context. More often than not - what people work on becomes their procedure- and that difference between the ideal procedure and changing the movement is never clearly defined. Here's a non- golfing example. Let's say that the proper procedure for operating a car is to 1) Get in, 2) turn on the ignition with the key, 3) press on the gas peddle while steering the wheel. Now, let's say that Trig (hey, Trig I had to use somebody!:) ) get's up get's in the car- goes through the procedure and the car doesn't speed up very much (i.e. doesn't hit the ball very far say), he gets out - notices that the front left tire is low- takes the pump out and fills the tire up and takes off. Next day gets in the car - goes through the procedure- car doesn't speed up, gets out and sure enough needs to fill up the tire again- and Trig - not being very bright- finally understands the problem - the procedure for driving his car is to 1)Fill up the tire every morning (slide the hips), 2) Get in, 3) turn on the key, 4) press on the gas peddle while steering the wheel. Now, you would say - that's ridiculuous- I know Trig and he is a sharp guy- and he would obviously realize that his tire had a leak- and would get the tire fixed- he wouldn't make that part of his procedure. But human movement and our understanding of it is minimal- and therefore that's exactly what so many players do all the time, they add things to their procedures that are non-essential or items that they are working on- become their procedure. Because it's not so easy to see or understand the problem in a golf movement as it is with operating your car.


Anyway, back to the 7-17 quote and the proper "read":
"Halting the Backstroke motion with the Feet and letting this same tension pull the Downstroke through Impact is “swinging form the Feet” and gives the Stroke maximum Swing Radius."[/b]

The above quote is done via the #3 pressure point. Here is the crude explanation i.e. the normal method broken out for analysis. Before you get to the top or end of your backstroke- you start the effort to move the club back to the ball with the hands first, but that doesn't stop the backward movement of the arm/club, so other muscles/tendons come into play, for a full shot- this "flow" to stop the club from moving back moves from the hand, to arm, through the body to the feet- with the feet being the last supporting brace to help stop the backward movement of the club- so while the club is finalizing the backward movement- the mind has already started the downswing, and the body has helped stop that backward motion. And the load that you sense via the #3 pressure point- acknowledges all of that lag through the body, acknowledges that swing radius, and acknowledges the length of that moment of inertia arm, I.E. the feel of the load at #3 would feel different if you hadn't created that kind of pivot lag. To retain that kind of pressure/understanding that #3 has, means essentially you have to retain that pivot lag, that swing radius. If all of sudden your lower body stops- say because you subconsciously or consciously knew that the initial direction that you started down with would cause you to miss the ball- then you instantly shorten your swing radius- and instantly have throwaway- you just can't shorten your radius like that and possibly accelerate enough to retain the lag. An example of that would be the following: Imagine you've got this 20 foot heavy board- that you've swung back and now are swinging forward around a corner- you've loaded it going back and now you accelerating it around the corner with the lag pressure that you loaded throughout your body- but the basic awareness of that is in your hands- now all of a sudden - some magical force cuts that board down to 3 feet long- because of the shorter radius- it speeds up so quickly and it disrupts the motion so much that you just can't help but lose the lag pressure of the board. That's similar to the throwaway situation if you lose pivot lag suddenly.

So I may have rambled, may have got off the subject- but it's a big area of study- hoped something helped or answered the question. Don't mind if you ask more or bring it back to a specific focus- if it's on point and helps clarify this concept that we are discussing.

Mike O.